The mission of this page is to provide links to information and resources about the Recovery Model. "Recovery" is a concept that has been around for quite some time but has been applied mostly to chemical dependency treatment. In the realm of mental illness and wellness, recovery is about learning that mental illness and wellness coexist in all of us. No matter what our mental illness may be, we have a resource of mental wellness that we can tap into and use for working on our goals in life and doing our best.

If you would like to read more about mental wellness, resilience, recovery, and growth, we invite you to visit MentalWellness.ws.

Recovery Model Initiatives in King County.

One of the most significant King County public mental health cultural and philosophical shifts is occurring in the arena of "recovery."

The King County Council passed Ordinance No. 13974 on October 16, 2000. It requires the mental health and chemical dependency division to report annually to the King County Council on the evaluation of adult mental health consumers and their progress toward recovering from mental illness. To my knowledge, this is the first "recovery ordinance" in Washington State. It is in the process of being revised and King County is on the verge of launching a much more comprehensive recovery plan.

To read the full text of the proposed ordinance, which includes a very interesting preamble, go to King County Recovery Ordinance, which is a small .pdf Adobe Acrobat file. In addition, if you do not know what a "GAF" is as it is referred to in the ordinance, "GAF" stands for "Global Assessment of Functioning" and is a rating scale of psychological, social, and occupational functioning. A copy of the rating scale as a one page .pdf can be viewed by clicking here.

Recovery Initiatives Committee Established!

The King County Mental Health Advisory Board now has a Recovery Initiatives Committee (RIC). The mission of the RIC is to examine what King County publicly-funded mental health providers are doing to assist their clients with recovery and to make recommendations.

The Recovery Initiatives Committee is looking for community members and volunteers to assist them in their efforts. The Chair of the committee is Eugene Wan, a well-known mental health activist. To get more information about the Recovery Initiatives Committee, please e-mail Eugene at ewan40@operamail.com.

The new meeting schedule of the Recovery Initiatives Committee is the fourth Tuesday of every month from 12 noon to 2:00 p.m. at King County MHCADSD, 401 5th Ave., Suite 400, Seattle, WA 98104.
The Committee has played a significant role in helping to further develop the Mental Health Recovery Plan and implement changes to policies and procedures for providers of publicly-funded mental health care. For more information about the Recovery Plan and other recent King County proposals, please see the following links.

The King County Mental Illness and Drug Dependency Action Plan Web page contains links to many documents related to recovery issues and to a proposed 0.1% sales tax for King County. Seven other Washington State counties have already enacted such a sales tax for mental health, chemical dependency, and therapeutic courts.

Recent implementation efforts of the KC Mental Health Recovery Plan include the development and distribution to providers of an extensive Recovery Plan Template and Agency Self-Audit Recovery Orientation Worksheets.

Peer counseling and consumer-operated services, including club houses, are core components of a recovery-centered mental health care system. Below are some links to more information about consumer-operated services.

Check the Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation at Boston University's Web site. The Recovery Center is based on a concept of recovery that is rooted in consumers' experiences and their articulation of what has helped them to heal. Many articles and other resources are available.

Mental Health Recovery: What Helps and What Hinders?. A report published in October 2002 by the National Technical Assistance Center and subtitled "A National Research Project for the Development of Recovery Facilitating System Performance Indicators." (108 page Adobe Acrobat document).

The Job Accommodation Network (JAN) is a free consulting service that provides information about job accommodations, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and the
employability of people with disabilities.